Science Fiction in Harwell
I went to visit ISIS 2 yesterday. Most of you won’t need me to tell you that it is a second generation neutron station, that, by firing a high-intensity proton beam at a metal plate generates neutrons to allow scientists to examine molecular structures. Nor will most of you need telling that this £150 million project is based at Harwell in my constituency, which already has the Diamond Synchrotron and is now defacto the “big science” capital of the UK.
The ISIS building is astonishing. I visited it with Andrew Taylor, the director of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and one of the country’s (ie world’s) top physicists, whom I normally bump into when he is doing his shopping at Waitrose in Wantage. We stood at the point where the beam will hit metal, and Andrew proudly told me that if the machine was switched on we would be vaporised instantly. The construction statistics, given to me by the construction supervisor, Jonathan Carkeet, are mind-boggling. The central structure is made up of 1700 specifically constructed pieces of steel, which together weigh 6,000 tons and cost £10 million. It could easily be mistaken for a monumental installation, which says something about the thin line between art and science.
ISIS 2, which comes twenty years after ISIS 1, is in a building designed to make science acccessible. The designers, while dealing with a fiendishly complex structure, didn’t forget a coach park and viewing platform for children. So while we moan about the state of science in our schools, it is good to know that our world-beating scientists always have the next generation in mind whatever they do.